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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Several of you have asked about the details of Chelsea's shower, so I thought I would spill all the goodies here ;)

So this past weekend we had my sister, Chelsea, baby shower. The shower was planned for Feb 19th, but right after Christmas she was diagnosed with preeclampsia and was put on strict bed rest. SO because of the fact the doctor thought Feb 19th would be to close to a possible due date, my mom and I decided ok its now or never...in about two weeks we pulled this off. We were busy bees but am thrilled with how it came out.

We wanted to go with a vintagey circus theme..

Here is the invitation. Originally, I was going to make the invites myself, but with the time constraints and the fact that I just couldn't seem to make exactly what I was wanting I decided to go to Etsy lol. As always, you can never really go wrong there. Within 15 minutes I had picked out the invite and had emailed the shop owner all of the details. Within 48 hours I had these babies printing at Office Depot. This is SO the way to go when doing invites! Its so simple - you pick out the invite, pay for them, send the shop owner the details and then they send you a pdf file of the invite customized to you! I then just emailed it to Office Depot and had them print it on card stock. The total cost (for file and printing) was about $35.00 for 53 invites (does not include envelopes or postage). Lisa, the shop owner on Etsy, was amazing to work with! She redid this invite about 3 times for me! She rocked. Go check her out here!

We decided to go with bottled soda and strawberry lemonade - I got the mason jar idea off Pinterest. Both were a huge hit and a fun twist!

Mom bought these straws from another one of my favorite vendors Shop Sweet LuLu. They have some really great stuff for parties and change out inventory regularly.

The popcorn was another find off Pinterest. We did Kettle Corn and Caramel Corn. To make them stand I bought a piece of styrofoam and spray painted it green. I then bought skinny wood skewers and pushed them down in the styrofoam and put some hot glue around the base. I then slid the cone over the skewer to make the popcorn cone stand - when someone took a cone the skewer stayed in place and I would just put another one on there. The cones are just rolled up pieces of scrapbook paper ;)

My mom made this adorable Diaper Cake!

We found a lady to make the cupcakes and then found the cupcake liners at Walmart.

Here is the food table - We bought the pink pompoms from Party City.

My mom made this adorable wreath for the entrance of the shower. What's great is we went with the theme of the baby's (Maylee) room so Chelsea can put it in her nursery.

I made Chelsea her corsage - I think real corsages are way overrated - plus I wanted to do something different. I made her this one - what is great is all three flowers can be used as hair clips or put on headbands for Maylee - or they can be pinned on outfits as they have safety pins on the back as well :) And even better - this was cheaper than some fancy flower corsage!

Here is a picture of one of the guest tables. We had 5 tables with these on them - we used pink and yellow pinwheels.

I found these online at Lauren Makes - she has several colors to choose from and they are completely free! I printed off tons of these and put them on the guest tables with some markers. Thought it was cute and different and something great Chelsea can put in the baby book ;)

We knew we had to think of a game that didn't require Chelsea to do much moving since she is on bed rest. Thankfully I found this fun little game called Match Mommy - I found it on the blog Little House Big Heart - emailed the blog owner asking if I could use her design and she was so sweet and customized it for the shower for me to print! She has some other fun ideas as well - be sure to check her out!

Well, that pretty much sums up the shower details - we had a blast and Chelsea was blessed with lots of love and gifts. I LOVE PLANNING PARTIES!

Monday, January 9, 2012

In September I met up with Michael & Shanna for a photo shoot. This shoot was extra special because it was for their 5 year wedding anniversary! I was so excited because um HELLO 5 years is a BIG deal!

You may remember Shanna from my Women Only Session - so from that post you already know how much I adore Shanna! I had met Michael once or twice before but this was my first time to actually get to chit chat with the man. I was not disappointed - these two are perfect together and were a blast!

When they first walked up I couldn't believe my eyes - M was in a leg brace! Ummm What the WHAT? Come to find out he had been needing foot surgery for awhile from when he was in the Air Force - he finally got it a few weeks prior and here he was in a full blown boot and crutches! He was such a trooper- I know he had to of been in pain, but yet he stuck it out and did whatever he needed to make sure we got that perfect shot (most men are not to thrilled about having pictures done in the first place - let alone when they are in pain - so Shanna he is a keeper! ha)

He got her flowers for their anniversary ;)

Ok so remember how I told you they were a blast? Yes well, let me explain the above photo. So as a fun little idea, I brought along some chalkboards and asked them to write down one thing they have learned about each other over the past 5 years of wedded bliss. They were not allowed to show/tell each other - I had them stand there and then at the same time turn their chalk boards over. I giggled when I saw what Michael had written about his bride - but then I saw what Shanna had written and I just about peed my pants!

See the laughter above? - this explains them perfectly. They are best friends and have so much joy in their relationship that you cant help but smile when you are around them ;) I absolutely loved that about their session!

Michael & Shanna - thank you for allowing me a glimpse into your past 5 years - I wish you lots of love, laughter and smokin hot smooches in the future! (was that inappropriate?)